The world’s leading automakers are betting on hydrogen-powered cars as the future of personal transportation. These are electric cars that use fuel cells as the source of electricity instead of batteries.
The greatest obstacle standing in the way of widespread adoption of this technology is the problem of storing and transporting hydrogen. The necessary hydrogen infrastructure is complicated, expensive and full of challenges.
A team of scientists in the UK has come up with a viable solution to the problem. They propose to use ammonia as a clean and secure hydrogen-containing energy source. The ammonia could be stored on board in cars in liquid form in plastic tanks. When needed, a new chemical process discovered by the scientists would “crack” the ammonia into its constituent one part nitrogen and three parts hydrogen.
Until now, the best ways to crack ammonia involved the use of catalysts containing very expensive precious metals. The new method involves chemicals like sodium amide that can be produced for pennies.
Ammonia is one of the most heavily used organic chemicals in the world with over 200 million tons produced each year. It is also one of the most transported bulk chemicals worldwide. Ammonia is utilized as feedstock for fertilizers and in many other products.
The British team believes that they can develop an ammonia decomposition reactor no bigger than a 2-liter soda bottle that could be used to provide hydrogen to run a car. With this sort of technology, the difficult challenges of the hydrogen economy might just be eliminated by instead adopting an ammonia economy.
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Hydrogen breakthrough could be a game-changer for the future of car fuels
Photo, posted July 19, 2012, courtesy of the Official U.S.Navy Page on Flickr.
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Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.